World Bank Luminary: Breed Smaller People To Increase “Metabolic Efficiency”

In an article titled The Populations Problem written two days ago by Herman Daly, a former World Bank luminary and current professor at the University of Maryland suggests genetically designing smaller human beings to counter global population growth. Breeding smaller human beings, Daly asserts, “could be the simplest way of increasing metabolic efficiency (measured as number of people maintained by a given resource throughput).”

In his article, Daly rejects the argument that limiting human numbers is an automatic result of technological progress and economic growth, the so called “demographic transition”, and points to the environmental dangers posed by just lowering the birthrates through development and prosperity. Daly:

“Of course reduction in fertility by automatic correlation with rising standard of living is politically easy, while direct fertility reduction is politically difficult. But what is politically easy may be environmentally destructive.”

After prepping his argument with formulas the professor reveals his demonic side by stating that humans have long since bred plants and livestock, re-engineering them to larger size, so why not apply the same sort of engineering to human cattle. Here is the quote in full:

“(…) human organisms might be genetically redesigned to require less food, air, and water. Indeed smaller people would be the simplest way of increasing metabolic efficiency (measured as number of people maintained by a given resource throughput). To my knowledge no one has yet suggested breeding smaller people as a way to avoid limiting births, but that probably just reflects my ignorance. We have, however, been busy breeding and genetically engineering larger and faster-growing plants and livestock. So far, the latter dissipative structures have been complementary with populations of human bodies, but in a finite and full world, the relationship will soon become competitive.”